Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
Still the problem remains. Hume is right to stress that comrol over thought
is a major factor in suppressing the natural beliefs of common sense and thereby
ensuring submission to power. The general public is not supposed to understand
this; that would undermine the goals. But elites have long been well
aware that when obedience cannot be secured by the bludgeon, democracy
must be subverted by other means. It is revealing to see how these concerns
have been articulated, over the years.
During the 17th century English revolmion, libertarian groups "represented
the first great outburst of democratic thought in history," one historian
comments.8 This expression of the instinct for freedom at once raised the
problem of how to contain the threat. The libertarian ideas of the radical
democrats were considered outrageous by respectable people. They favored
universal education, guaranteed health care, and democratization of the law,
which one described as a fox, with poor men (he geese: "he pulls off their feathers
and feeds upon them." They developed a kind of "liberation theology"
which, as one critic ominously observed, preached "seditious doctrine to the
people" and aimed "to raise the rascal multitude ... against all men of best quality
in the kingdom, to draw them into associations and combinations with one
another. .. against all lords, gentry, ministers, lawyers, rich and peaceable men"
(historian Clement Walker). The rabble did not want to be ruled by King or
Parliament, but "by countrymen like ourselves, that know our wants." Their
pamphlets explained further that ''It will never be a good world while knights 159
and gentlemen make us laws, that are chosen for fear and do but oppress LIS,
and do not know the people's sores."
These ideas naturally appalled the men of best quality. They were willing to
grant the people rights, but within reason, and on the principle that "when we
mention (he people, we do not mean the confused promiscuous body of the
people." Particularly frightening were the itineram preachers and mechanics
preaching freedom and democracy. the agitators stirring up the rascal multirude,
and the printers puuing out pamphlets questioning authority and its
mysteries. "There can be no form of government without its proper mysteries,"
one commentator warned, and these mysteries must be "concealed" from
the common folk. In words echoed by Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor. [he same
observer went on (Q suess that "Ignorance, and admiration arising from ignorance.
are the parents of civil devorion and obedience." The radical democrats
had "cast all the mysteries and secrets of government ... before the vulgar (like
pearls before swine)," he continued, "and have ... made the people so curious
and so arrogant that they will never find humility enough to submit to a civil
rule." It is dangerous. another commentator observed, to "have a people know
their own strength." After the democrats had been defeated, John Locke wrote
that "day-labourers and uadesmen, the spinsters and dairymaids" must be told
what to believe; "The greatest part cannot know and therefore they must
believe." 9
These ideas have ample resonance until the present day.